Bah! I'm so Bored

Like all good things come to an end, so did Rock Star INXS. I had missed the penultimate episode, and had somehow managed to goofup the fact that the grand finale was in the offing. Just like I always do, I came back home and started sifting through the cable TV landscape. I don't exactly hit the + or - programme button dumbly to ascend or descend the 0-99 whole number range till I come back to square one, ie, the channel where I had started out. That is too much hard work. I just check out the 10 odd channels that I find remotely bearable, and half of this(the better half) includes sports channels, while the other half includes some music, movie and news channels, and last but not the least, star world, if I don't stumble upon something else in the previous 9. All of this, usually in a 5 to 10 minute drill.

Thanks to an extreme bit of good luck, the other channels couldn't keep me attracted for more than a few seconds each. ESPN was showing some equestrian competition, where a poor horse made an extremely ungainly jump over a hurdle, causing the jockey to fly off from his saddle, stay in the air for a moment too long, and land back with a thud. My (extremely depraved) initial reaction was to laugh at the incident, that the commentator described simply in one word, 'Ouch'. One moment later, I realised the moral repercussions of my mistake, stopped laughing, and switched over to the next channel. Same jhol here, and pretty much everywhere else - nothing interesting enough. The new kids on the block, Ten sports and Zee sports are flooded with action from the lesser european leagues - portuguese, bundesliga and what not - they are fun for a while, but not for too long. Ten sports shows Serie A too, but it wasn't on at that time. They were showing the Sania Mirza match where she was mauled by the lesser ranked european girl. Watching the game was such a pain in the eye - the lights at the Netaji Indoor Stadium shined brightly on the courts when seen from the 30 degree camera angle, and this made the ball totally invisible on television. And the bloody broadcasters kept pursuing that camera angle.

I moved on - landed on Star world, and bingo! The finale of Rock Star INXS just started, with the credits still rolling in the foreground, and camera slowly moving around the stage, while catching a fleeting glimpse of Brooke Burke's leggy frame.

Marty, J.D. and Mig kicked off the 3 way grand finale with individual solos. Mig was up first, and sang 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. His effort was technically correct, but sadly, he couldn't fire up the stage, and lingering recollections of Suzie doing a much better effort on the same song some episodes back didn't help. I was disappointed - for I had held higher expectations from this aussie bloke, perhaps even considered him my favourite at one time. JD went next, and made a superb effort with 'you cant always get what you want'. Marty went last and sang 'wish you were here'. This guy's similitude with Mick Jagger was glaring - especially in the way they looked (skinny frame) and moved, though not in the way they sang. To cut a long story short, after Round 1 and deliberation of the judges, Mig was chucked, and after Round 2, where the judges (ie, the INXS band) hit the floor and performed with both JD and Marty, they came to the decision that JD was king. JD has good vocal talent to back him up, and his performances on stage had been electrifying, powerful, yet touching shades of vulnerability. I wasn't amazed at him being selected. In fact, right after he sang 'you cant always', it almost became self evident that he would get selected, and the rest of the show seemed somewhat pointless. It held me till the end only because of other reasons of a personal kind - Namely, this was a somewhat favourite show, and after today's darned episode, there wouldn't be one more. The INXS band raised a toast to him, and the show ended with Tim or someone saying 'tonight INXS becomes a band again', and a performance of a new track from their soon to be released album with their new lead singer. Bored, I went channelsurfing once again, this time halting at more stopovers on the cable tv landscape than I usually stop over at. Nah! Nothing interesting enough anywhere. Switched off the idiot box, and went off to check detailed reports of the scary rollercoaster helltrips of the stock market on the internet.